Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes
Cake flour makes these Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes exceptionally soft, exactly what you want when you bite into a cupcake. The canned pure pumpkin and vegetable oil used in the batter give the cupcakes a moistness reminiscent of a pumpkin muffin, but the tenderness of the crumb is unmistakably that of a cupcake. Rather than using 5 different spices to flavor the cake, we only call for cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice because the blend of spices used to make pumpkin pie spice is all that’s needed to achieve the right taste. Sitting atop each cupcake is a tangy pumpkin frosting packed with cream cheese and spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg. The recipe is written in such a way that you will use an entire 15-ounce can of pure pumpkin between the cupcake batter and pumpkin frosting, ensuring that you don’t waste a bit of the pumpkin you buy. Separately, each component is delicious, but together, the cupcakes and the pumpkin frosting come together into something irresistible.